My so-called confinement

It's been more than six weeks since Emma came into our lives, and I am so dreading going back to work and leaving my little angel behind.

My post-partum recovery was smooth and quick. I was on my feet and walking to the hospital's Starbucks cafe on my second day. I did have an episiotomy and experienced some pain in the first week. I was terrified of infection - I mean, even when clean the stitches hurt. And Googling some of other people's experiences made me even more fearful, so I was super diligent with my sitz washes and hygiene in general. 

I have to say though, I started out never really agreeing with traditional Chinese confinement practices, and I know now I absolutely detest them. I'm sorry, I imagine practices like not bathing and washing one's hair (some traditionalists go so far as not allowing mothers wash their hands in tap water - only warm water), shunning ceiling fans (air conditioning is ok - go figure), imbibing copious amounts of alcohol, consuming loads of "heaty" ginger and sesame oil, drinking nothing but red dates tea, etc. maybe worked in ancient China where the air was dry the winters were cold, and wet nursing a legitimate business. But in the tropics, with over 90% humidity, and the fact that I delivered in the hottest, least rainy time of the year - this was a battle I was ready to fight. Seriously, some of these practices, like eating tons of ginger and drinking alcohol, could endanger newborns by worsening jaundice if a mother chooses to breastfeed (and 90% of Malaysian Chinese babies contract it).

Here's what I did/didn't do during my confinement:

1) I chose not engage a confinement lady. A long-practiced Chinese tradition, the CL is supposed to stay in one's home the month post-partum, and help look after the mother and newborn. Duties include preparing food  that help with the mother's recovery, take care of the newborn (especially at night to let the mother get her rest), and maybe do a bit of light housework. My thought was, with our newly arrived helper and my mum staying with us the first month, I did not want another person in the house to deal with. I think it turned out to be a great decision, thanks to my feelings about confinement practices in general (see above, and below). On another note, it never dawned on me that the confinement month was meant for the mother to basically rest and let everyone else do stuff for you, including take care of and feed the baby at night. I took care of Emma myself at night, and in the day I changed her diapers, gave her sponge baths, even baked cookies. My mother-in-law was shocked when she came by and found me spooning cookie dough onto baking sheets one evening. Looking back, I'm glad I did all I did. I'm pretty confident I can take care of Emma myself, and I adapted easily when my mum left for Penang and AK returned to work.

2) Food. Such a big deal in Chinese confinement. We got confinement food catered from this confinement centre. It's amazing, the mummy-and-baby services and products you can get these days. There is a huge market for high-end baby/children's products and I have to say, whatever products I found recommended online in the US, UK, or Australian websites, etc. are not only all available in Malaysia, most of the Malaysian suppliers take online orders too! More on that later.

Back to the confinement food deliveries. All I can say is, thank the Lord I decided to only go for the one meal per day package.  I hated the food - the sickly sweet soups chockful of dried longans, the vinegar pork (just not my thing, I really can't stand anything with vinegar - I understand many people love this dish), flabby salmon (to their credit, the fish was fresh. I just can't swallow cooked salmon). To be fair, I am probably not your typical Chinese gal, and most people would just suck it up and down the food. Many people even enjoy it. What I did NOT find at all acceptable was the fact that even though AK called and told them that I could not take ginger/sesame oil/traditional herbs like dong gui (angelica if I'm not mistaken), etc. because Emma had jaundice (in fact she has to remain in the hospital under UV therapy for 4 days after I delivered), they made no changes at all to the food preparations. Just as well, I pushed most of my food to poor AK and my mum, who ended up with ulcers because of the excessive amounts of ginger, sesame oil and whatnot. What did I eat? My mum's black bean and black chicken soup, pork ribs soup, roasted pork my mother in-law loved to buy, kampung chicken soup, stir-fried beef, omelettes, steamed eggs - all paired with brown rice from the confinement centre (that I could eat). For breakfast I ate oats with soy milk, and I added virgin coconut oil as I read a lot on its benefits for lactating mothers. In all truth, I was so sick of all the bland, healthy food that as the days wore on I ate less and less of my lunch and dinner, until at 3 plus weeks my mum caved and made chicken curry for me. Bliss.

3) I spent a grand total of 5 days without showering. These were the days I was cooped up in the hospital with Emma, where the air conditioning was cold and the bathroom just didn't feel conducive. As soon as we were discharged and I arrived home though, I headed straight for the shower. I did use the herbal mixture I purchased from Tanamera - got my helper to boil the herbs and added them to my bath water. A friend of ours also gifted me with a shower foam and shampoo set, traditionally made by a local Sabahan especially for post natal use. I ended up using the shower foam more than the herbs, purely because I was too impatient to get my herbs boiled, and the convenience of the ready made shower foam made it easy. I really really love the shampoo - left my hair glossy and better than it was during my pregnancy.

4) I signed up for 5 days of post-natal massages from Tanamera. I had heard good things about traditional Malay massage, hot stone treatment ("Tungku"), and abdominal wrapping ("bengkung") package. I would have loved every 2-hour session if I didn't hear poor Emma calling out for mummy every now and then :(. I did express milk beforehand for my mum and AK to syringe feed her, but she was pretty adamant she wanted her milk straight from the source. Other than that, the massages were such an indulgence. (Is it just me, or Isn't confinement like a one-month holiday - getting massages, the best of foods, etc. and you do nothing other than breastfeed haha :)). After each massage, my therapist would heat large river stones, wrap them with herbs and gently massage my abdomen. Then came the spice paste which was spread all over the ab area, and over that a corset-like wrap I was supposed to wear for as long as I could tolerate. I usually lasted around 5 hours, with the hot, spicy paste burning against my skin and the tightness of the corset. I don't know for sure if my uterus shrunk a little more, if any additional gas/"wind" was expelled, to tell the truth. But it felt good after and while I still have a thick layer of abdominal fat to get rid of, my gynae did tell me that my uterus shrank very fast.

5) I started going for walks with Emma around our neighborhood after the second week. I just felt that I needed to stretch my legs and get out of the house. In the evenings, if I wasn't too tired, I'd put Emma in her jogger, ignore my mum's protests and head to the neighborhood park. It was a sanity saver for me.

Well all I can say is that thank God it's all over. It's been a month since, and I still eat pretty healthy, thanks to my helper who cooks daily for me. And I still drink my red dates tea once a day, to help with milk production. But at least I do it because I want to.

Emma's first night home

Five months, and I'm wondering

The belly decided to show itself in full force in Month Number Six! And let's not go into details about my worst fear - arse expansion. For someone who used to be in complete control of her body, I find all of this to be new and terribly frightening. Pants that used to hang on me can't fit anymore. What if they never fit me again?? The horror!

But she's kicking, people! And squirming and doing somersaults. At least, that's what it feels like sometimes. We don’t know for sure if she’s a she, but we know she’s growing well, has developed a healthy spine, and – as all the lab tests show – is showing no indications of slowing down. 

Work has been a little crazy - so much management attention on this not so little project I'm in, especially in the space I'm responsible for.

I have had to remind myself not to get too negative at times. I’ve also subconsciously taken a step back sometimes in terms of my emotional investment in my work, because I was worried I was letting the pressure get to me and it would affect the pregnancy.

And this bothers me.

 

I have always been emotionally invested about my work – to me that’s part and parcel of my success so far. How does one put 101% and go the distance, otherwise? Work takes up most of my waking hours, and – whether I like to admit it or not - defines my very person. I (still) am ambitious and I make no apologies for it.

And so I've been thinking a lot about Sheryl Sandberg and Marissa Mayer.

Today I declined going to the construction site - not because I can't, but because I thought it was an unnecessary risk for me, my baby and the company to take.

Now I am wondering if it was the right thing to do. Sheryl Sandberg writes about "Leaning In", and not leaving the table until you've actually left the table. Did I just leave the table?

The construction site

It didn't start out like that, for sure. When I first discovered I was pregnant, I was determined to continue Leaning In. In my first trimester I travelled almost every week. I made it a point to put on my coveralls and visit the construction site, climbing over scaffolding and dodging heavy loads. I would always utter a prayer of thanks when I boarded the plane back home. It took enough from me to get through normal office days, much less athose that began before sun-up with a red eye flight and ending with me reaching home well after my first trimester bedtime. But I endured it all, for fear of missing out.

 

I have/would never call myself a feminist. I just want equal opportunity and no special treatment. I have seen some so-called career women manipulate terrified PC bosses into allowing them to deliver (as in work) practically nothing at to take days off at every whim and fancy - at the expense of their (mostly male and single female) co-workers. I have vowed never to be one of those women. I will  carry my own weight (in addition to the baby one - haha).

Look at the women people who condemned Marissa Mayer when she announced her plan to take just a few weeks off work (and work remotely during all that time off). As one of the commentators in this dialogue remarked “She has a legal obligation to maximize corporate profits for her shareholders. She’s not gotten to where she is today by forgetting her duties as a CEO.” I think that hit the nail on the head. I sometimes think that women forget that there is a job to be done. The world doesn’t stop because you have a baby. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. There is a business to be run and you are (or were) just one of the cogs in that gigantic machine.

 

But then again, maybe it's not that simple. There's a definite slowdown I feel in myself. Chalk it up to pregnancy exhaustion, or hormones, or just the fact that there's a little person inside of me who will be totally dependent on me and I need to be thinking more of her and less of everything else.

 

I guess there's no easy, straightforward answers - except to make as much time as possible, get help, and top fretting the small things (translation: our house is a lot messier than it used to be)

In the meantime, I shall give thanks for the fact that we can afford to hire a helper; that all signs point to AK wanting to be a hands-on dad; that our parents are so supportive and ever ready to lend a hand. I don't think I could ask for anything more. In the meantime I've re-started my early morning routines to try and catch some exercise time (to avoid the backaches that start appearing once I stop), so I can work late with the exercise part done for the day.

There's only so much you can prepare for really, mentally and otherwise. I will just have to navigate my wildly swinging feelings towards my child and my career. Onward to the unknown!

Pregnancy Joy

One of my friends, who has a two year-old and just delivered her second, encouraged me to document my thoughts and feelings throughout my pregnancy.

There's so much talk and information online on pregnancy hormones, antenatal depression, etc, etc. I don't know.

All I feel is happy.

I just feel so incredibly blessed right now. I get offered little tips and anecdotese from young mums all round the office pouring in, my parents constantly calling to check on how I feel, friends we go out with so eager to accomodate where I want to eat.

Most of all, my husband has been so incredibly supportive and downright joyful that we're finally getting the child he longs for so much, it's infectious. I think our cat has caught onto his excitement, I kid you not.

Sure, there's still fear, from the superficial (how am I going to get by on less than 7 hours of sleep at night) to world-weary (just look at the spate of bad news - child abuse, kidnappings, racial intolerance, ISIS - why would I want to bring a child into this kind of world? How do I protect her?).

But there's also excitement, and the feeling of growing and infinite love, that it will be more than OK in the end.

Miri Memories, and Sarawak Laksa

Current Obsession: Eating Asia.

 

Reading Robin Eackhart's writing makes me nostalgic for Miri and its humble vibrancy. The daily tamu's (markets), where they sell everything from live fish, sago worms, mud crabs, crocodile-skin fruit, where I used to buy rambutans by the tonne (I exaggerate of course).

 

I have of course come to realize, cooped here in my big city, how much more I miss Miri than having to drive only 5 minutes to and from work every day.

 

I miss the tamu's, where were weather-beaten little old ladies sell handwoven baskets and traditionaly beaded Christmas ornaments.

 

Where the locals' favourite vegetables grow wild (midin or jungle fern) - stuff that grew in the drains and ditches.

 

I used to love the dependencies (and respect) the locals had on the wild, the rusticity of it all - we had neighbours who kept chickens and slaughtered them for food. We must have been the only family that didn't have a small vegetable patch in our garden. A monitor lizard and catfish lived in the neighbourhood drains (we occassionaly saw the big guy swim languidly by - but he never bothered us). It was an almost daily even to spot electric blue kingfishers sometimes. And - oh, Miri didn't have crows, it had storks! Pure white birds everywhere. Sometimes we even spotted a hornbill or two.

 

I wish I captured more of the local wildlife and lifestyles, in words and photos.

 

The fact that I would spot men with nets and rods harvesting krill and catching mudcrabs and catfish on my drive home, where the ground is so fertile it's easy to live off the land. Where they warn you about crocodiles in the local park lake.

 

I loved it all, I confess. I loved our kindly neighbours, the gentle Sarawakian spirit, the muhibbah-ness of the place - where, truly, people of all races and religions live in harmony.

 

I also loved Sarawak Laksa - white rice noodles in a sour, coconut-milk broth flavoured with the essence of prawns and jazzed up with chilli and lime. Garnishes are strips of egg omelette, strips of poached chicken breast, prawns, beansprouts and coriander. It is about the only Sarawakian food I really miss. I could do without kolok mee (kinda like wan tan mee without the wan tan, hence loses its point), red wine mee sua or wild boar (Sarawakians are obsessed with wild boar, I don't know why).

 

And since my pregnancy cravings are hitting me full on, I decided I had to make my own version. I needed a good supply!

 

I researched online and to my surprise, there isn't a real recipe for the Sarawak laksa spice paste. Apparently it's a closely guarded secret, and even the manufacturers are few and between. Oh when will they sell a Sarawak-laksa flavoured instant noodle??

 

So the paste had to be bought - good thing a friend was visiting Miri and so I got him to get me two packs. 1 pack feeds about 6. The rest of the recipe was gleaned from here and here. I decided that mine would be kinda a hybrid of both.

 

We invited AK's parents and my youngest brother over for dinner, and it went down pretty well, I have to say. My brother kept saying how much he loved it, and my in-laws told me to open a stall :P. The recipe below fed the five of us pretty generously, with enough leftover gravy for another 2 servings the day after - just nice for AK and I. I think a repeat is definitely in order!

 

 

Notes:

- I was pretty generous with the prawns - you can use smaller prawns and reduce the amount.

- You can also use thick coconut milk, or add more milk if you like a richer gravy. Reduce the gravy further if you plan to do so, so as not to dilute the taste too much).

 

Here's my version of the recipe:

 

Laksa gravy:

1 packet "Eagle Brand" Sarawak Laksa spice paste (300g)
700g large prawns. Remove the heads, peel and devein them. Reserve the heads and shells.
2 bonesless and skinless chicken breasts
2 litres chicken stock (I used water and a generous few dashes of concentrate)
300 ml coconut milk

 

Condiments:

4 eggs, beaten with a little soy sauce

4 cups beansprouts, tailed
Enough rice noodles (beehoon) for 6 persons
2-3 sprigs coriander, chopped

 

To serve with:

sambal belachan
lime halves

To make the gravy, bring the chicken stock to a boil. Add the chicken breasts, lower the heat to a gentle simmer and poach the breasts until cooked (about 15 minutes).

 

Remove the breasts. Once cooled, shred them using 2 forks (or your hands). Set aside - this is to be a condiment.

 

Bring the stock back to the boil. Meanwhile, heat a pan with a little oil. Fry the reserved prawn shells and heads until caramelized. Add this mixture (make sure you get all that orange prawn-infused oil into the pot) to the stock. Add the spice mix and lower the heat. Simmer for an hour.

 

Blend up the soup (I highly recommend using an immersion blender, this saves the trouble of emptying hot soup into a blender in batches - because I doubt any blender is large enough to accomodate a large pot of gravy). Strain the gravy into another pot and keep warm. Before serving, bring back to a boil and add the coconut milk.  Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

 

Make a thin omelette from the eggs (I had to do 2 omelettes as I wanted them thin and my pan wasn't that big).

 

Before serving, poach the peeled prawns in the laksa gravy (about 5 minutes) until cooked. Blanch the noodles (1-2 minutes) and the beansprouts (30 seconds) separately.

 

To serve, let people help themselves to noodles, beansprouts, omelette strips, chicken strips and prawns. Ladle the hot gravy over. Garnish with coriander. Add sambal and lime to increase spice and sourness levels accordingly.

 

 

Ham and Any-Veggie Soup

Pregnancy gets me all wired up weird. All I wanna eat is spicy (and sometimes) sour stuff - I have been having the maddest cravings for Sarawak Laksa - and my tastebuds seem extremely sensitive to anything too sweet.

So I hardly want to eat the desserts/cookies I used to want to - which is fine, really. But even fruit tastes sickeningly sweet sometimes.

Which is no good, of course - if there are three main pieces of advice I take the most seriously about pregnancy, they are - exercise/stay fit, stay happy and stress-free and eat lots of fruits and vegetables.

I am a huge fusspot when it comes to veggies. I often don't order them, or refuse to eat a lot when someones else does - because too many places use excess oil, or I just don't like the taste. So I ate lots of fruit.

But now that fruit can be a real turnoff sometimes, I was feeling somewhat anxious that I was not providing my little jelly bean enough nutrition (yes, I hope it's a her).

Well - you know how it is - if you can't find what you want when you want to order/buy it, then you just gotta make it yourself.

This is a ham-flavoured vegetable soup, inspired (somewhat) by this recipe. For a meatless version one could always use parmesan cheese to add a little more flavour.

The vegetables are just what I could find in my nearby Jaya Grocer - organic carrots, celery and french beans, onions and fennel went into the soup. I also got very cheap ham chips from there. I made a big batch for consumption throughout the week (plan got a little thwarted when I had to travel on business). Everytime I reheated the soup I also added (organic) spinach leaves for a further veggie boost. oh, and I also threw in a can of pinto beans, but that didn't work out so well - the grainy texture of the beans kinda took away from the crunch of the veggies.

My guess is that this recipe adapts to whatever mild-flavoured produce you can find in your local grocery - cauliflower, green cabbage, even some fresh button mushrooms maybe.

In fact, it's hardly a recipe - just cube up the aromatics - onion, celery, carrots - and slice the fennel into rings. Get the bacon and ham going with a little oil in a big heavy-bottomed pot. Stir the mixture every now and then until the bacon renders its fat. Add the aromatics, and a pinch of salt. Stir to coat with all that bacon and ham fat. Reduce heat to low, cover and let it all sweat and for the vegetables to release their sweetness. Stir often to ensure nothing sticks to the bottom and burns. Cover with water/chicken/vegetable stock (I used water and added a few dashes of chicken stock concentrate). Bring to the boil, add the drained beans and sliced French beans. Cook until the veggies are still crisp and retain some of their bite. Salt and pepper to taste. Just before serving, add the spinach and cook just enough to wilt the leaves.

I like mine with lots freshly ground black pepper and spinach, and for AK I grate a little parmesan over as well.

When AK first saw what I made he expressed disappointment that I was making a "plain" soup. Then he promptly slurped down 3 bowls. Hmph.

 

Never be the same again

I never thought I'd say this. I'm into my second trimester!

It all started when I had to just stop my elliptical work after less than 10 minutes on the trainer. It is usually a drag for me anyway, but never have I felt like I just.couldn't.continue. Then my chest started to hurt like crazy.

In the middle of a particularly difficult day to get through in the office, it suddenly dawned on me that this could be signs of more than the flu or normal aches. One short gynae appointment later we were staring at little jelly bean on the ultrasound scan.

Some ups and downs of the pregnancy so far:-

-  I don't have to clean touch the cat litter. The hubbs is so fearful of toxoplasmosis infections that he has now taken complete ownership of this chore we once squabbled over.

-  I haven't gained much weight - some flesh immediately appeared almost overnight on my butt, stomach and upper arms, but nothing particularly alarming. And my stomach also has the tendency to be normally-sized in the mornings and then balloon like crazy after a meal. But other than that, I still fit into most of my clothes (I do confess a sudden preference for elastic waistbands) and on the most part look like myself.

- FATIGUE - The first few weeks of the pregnancy were the WORST. I felt like a truck had run over me most of the time. I couldn't sit straight,let alone work some afternoons. This plus the fact that I had to endure quite a lot of business travel (quite a few day trips ugh) which really drained the life out of me. Oh, and one Saturday we decide to hit a mall after brunch. After an hour of trekking through its labyrinths, I told AK I REALLY needed to get home. Once home I was knocked out for 2 hours straight - almost unheard of for me.

I have been desperate enough to catch some rest in washrooms and even my car during office hours. After reading some tips online, here's what helped me the most:-

- Eating a good proper breakfast. Take blackstrap molasses in my coffee.

- Take multivitamin supplements in the morning

- Ironically, exercise. Long walks in the neighbourhood, breathing fresh air, helped me feel less lethargic and I sleep better at night. I have also been doing quite a bit of walking during my travels. A business trip to Singapore where I took the opportunity to walk from my hotel to the nearby malls (and hit Crate and Barrel), getting myself thoroughly lost in the basements of Ion Orchard. Ak and I also went on our long-awaited vacation to Bangkok, where we walked Chatuchak, Platinum Mall, and Siam Paragon numerous times. Though we depended on cabs a lot more more than in our previous trips. My parents also paid us a visit over the Raya holidays and we took them shopping. So some walking there as well. unfortunately due to all the travel I had to do I couldn't do as much yoga as I wanted (boo).

- Turn in early. In the first few weeks I was in bed by 9 and in dreamland by 9.30, only to struggle to wake up at 7 to go to work. 
I am grateful though, as the weeks go by and I approach the second trimester, that the fatigue seems to be tapering off. My gynae warns me that once the fatigue goes off then comes the nausea and morning sickness, which I am grateful (for now - fingers crossed!) that I have not experienced.

- Heartburn/Chest pains - I can't eat the portions I used to anymore. My usual style is to inhale/gobble my food, which is really BAD for me now. I end up with severe heartburn and chest pains that can go on for hours. I don't have much of an appetite (although I have very specific cravings), so often I don't realize I'm hungry until I'm ravenous. Now I need to remind myself to eat slowly and pause in between bites. This in some ways has been harder than giving up my coffee. Like, for example, we had a delicious team lunch of (extremely oily) spagetthi aglio olio and the yummiest chicken wings I had in a while. I couldnt stop myself from eating 4 wings in addition to my pasta, and am still feeling the effects 4 hours later.

- I do have VERY specific cravings though, that AK has to scramble to meet :) We've driven around Lucky Garden 3 times in search of a parking spot for Sarawak Laksa, sweated our brains out in Paramount Garden for Curry Mee (reeeally excellent by the way); braved the jam to Paradigm mall for deep-fried squid, to name a few. Yes, all I want to eat most of the time are spicy curry noodles!

Other than that, our lifestyles haven't really changed. We still go out with friends. I badly want to do a bit more travel before I reach the 3rd trimester, but with our work commitments it's going to be tough. Still, we'll see. I still want to cook and bake and do everything I love to do. And there are so many things we need to line up to prepare for our new arrival - hire a helper, shop for the best post-natal treatments, attend antenatal classes. One thing at a time though, and it's still early days.